"The girl has indeed
discovered surprising art in this business! Where could she have learnt
the method and system so well?"
"Where! why, where she learnt better things; how to prize a whole-
hearted seaman, for instance. Do you think that my tongue was jammed in
my mouth, all the time we used to sit by the side of the river in
Carolina, and that we found nothing to talk about!"
"Did you amuse your mistress with treatises on the art of navigation,
and the science of signals?" said Griffith, smiling.
"I answered her questions, Mr. Griffith, as any civil man would to a
woman he loved. The girl has as much curiosity as one of my own
townswomen who has weathered cape forty without a husband, and her
tongue goes like a dog-vane in a calm, first one way and then another.
But here is her dictionary. Now own, Griff, in spite of your college
learning and sentimentals, that a woman of ingenuity and cleverness is a
very good sort of a helpmate."
"I never doubted the merits of Miss Plowden," said the other, with a
droll gravity that often mingled with his deeper feelings, the result of
a sailor's habits, blended with native character. "But this indeed
surpasses all my expectations! Why, she has, in truth, made a most
judicious selection of phrases. 'No. 168. **** indelible;' '169. ****
end only with life;' '170. **** I fear yours misleads me;' '171. ----'"
"Pshaw!" exclaimed Barnstable, snatching the book from before the
laughing eyes of Griffith; "what folly, to throw away our time now on
such nonsense! What think you of this expedition to the land?"
"That it may be the means of rescuing the ladies, though it fail in
making the prisoners we anticipate.
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